Sao Paulo, Bountiful, Shanghai all in One Year

Our year anniversary moving back from Brazil just came around. June 2nd to be exact. It seems like so long ago we were sitting on the beach, sitting in traffic, and sitting on an airplane flying home from our wonderful, crazy life in Brazil.  Our life living as ex-pats was somehow over and what we thought would be the end of our overseas adventures.  We were so happy being home.  The convenience of family, familiar foods, super stores, the neighborhood, bikes, a back yard, being able to read labels, going out for yummy Mexican food or any type of food, made life so simple.  

Then the talk of moving to Shanghai came up.  My first reaction was, but I am so happy here, my second reaction is how can we pass this up if it is offered to us.  We had grown so much as a family living in Brazil.  We loved being able to see new things and have our kids experience the world, different cultures, different languages, and different people.  We loved being home, but having another wonderful experience was just too hard to let it pass by. 

In one year since we moved from Brazil to Utah, we vacationed in Bear Lake, Moab and moved to Shanghai.  Upon our arrival we lived in temporary housing for 4 weeks and then moved to our permanent home.   We flew to Hong Kong for a weekend to get our visas renewed and R's work visa.  We were home for a week and then flew to Chongqing for 15 days to finalize our work and resident permits. Upon our arrival home we received our shipment container that had been sitting in customs since March 8.  We now have our bikes, our comfy beds, couches and last but not least the kids have their toys (and I have my elliptical machine).  Oh how we have missed comfortable furniture.

R has put in more than his fare share of hours working. His travels have taken him to Taiwan, Chongqing, Beijing, Hong Kong, Suzhou and Baotao.  The kids have been troopers despite the instability.  They have been challenged at school in almost every subject.  They have made new friends and they continue to just amaze me.  Amongst all of this R babe has been potty trained and has learned how to ride a bike.  M goes to school full time and enjoys every minute of it.  His teacher has been working really hard with him learning his letters and numbers.  He loves having that new found knowledge.  He quite frequently comes home singing all sorts of gospel songs and tells us phrases in mandarin he has picked up at school.   J and C have both started violin lessons and are learning Mandarin.  J is also learning how to play the recorder.  C continues playing soccer with his buddies at school, and has started basketball.  We also just purchased his first swim cap for school swimming.  He has been able to make quite a few friends..  

This past year has been a whirlwind and the travel doesn't seem to end.  In just 20 days we fly back to  Utah, back to our family to catch up with cousins and friends, to indulge in our favorite foods and have fun.  We are so thankful for all the experiences that we have had this past year.  And wouldn't change most of them anyway.